The National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM) announces that it will be co-exhibiting with AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology to promote the MTConnect Challenge 2 at the Design and Manufacturing MidWest Conference’s Design, Manufacturing & Automation (DMA) Seminars at McCormick Place in Chicago on September 10 – 12, 2013. Look for John Wilczynski, NCDMM Program Manager and Hilena Hailu, AMT Manufacturing Technology Project Manager at Booth #1756.
“The DMA seminars are providing a unique opportunity to interact directly with the manufacturing software developer community to promote the MTConnect standard and inform them of the MTConnect Challenge 2,” said Mr. Wilczynski. “It is our hope that by making this audience acutely aware of the challenges faced by manufacturers, it will inspire them to capitalize on this industry need and develop MTConnect-based software that enable manufacturing intelligence breakthroughs for the defense manufacturing industry. By participating in the MTConnect Challenge 2, developers will also have the chance to win three cash prizes, totaling $225,000.”
MTConnect is a set of open-source, royalty-free communications standards intended to foster greater communication and connectivity between manufacturing equipment and devices. To date, harnessing the wealth of available information and data across equipment and devices has been challenging due in large part to the disparate nature of software programs.
The MTConnect Challenge is an Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Defense-wide Manufacturing Science and Technology (DMS&T) sponsored, two-part challenge project to develop manufacturing solutions, using the MTConnect standard. NCDMM, AMT, and the United States Army are overseeing the Challenge to overcome the existing and widespread interconnectability difficulties within manufacturing enterprises. The development of more MTConnect-based applications that can be easily adopted by manufacturing enterprises, especially the lower tier producers, is essential to optimizing manufacturing capabilities and support Department of Defense (DoD) supply chain management goals.
MTConnect Challenge 2 opened for submissions on July 1, 2013, and submissions will be accepted through January 31, 2014. Challenge 2 is for the actual development of functional software applications that use MTConnect to address the objectives of the challenge; whereas Challenge 1 was seeking ambitious yet achievable ideas that harnessed innovation and manufacturing intelligence breakthroughs. It is important to note that participation in the MTConnect Challenge 1 is not a prerequisite for participation in the MTConnect Challenge 2.
As part of the MTConnect Challenge 2, a total of $225,000 in cash prizes will be awarded, including a $100,000 award for first prize. There will be three rounds of judging to down select. The winners will be announced at the [MC]2 2014 Conference in April 2014.
